by Howard Mandel

When terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the jazz world of New York City went into shock. Most music venues located below 14th Street shut down entirely. The Village Vanguard, the Knitting Factory, the Blue Note and Tonic opened after three or four days, sensing that musicians, audiences, and their staff members needed to resume something like normal activities.

When the United States bombed Iraq on March 20, 2003, and Marines crossed the Kuwait border on their mission to Bagdad, jazz in New York proceeded almost as normal. Clubs stayed open, and according to managers at Downtown Music Gallery and Tower Records, record sales remained as they have been: slow. But the key word is "almost."

"The war affected business at the Village Vanguard, certainly," said Lorraine Gordon, who owns and runs that venerable club. "We are still recovering from 911, and a war does not increase people's joy to go out at night. So we have stress-filled audiences and a local economy already in serious trouble. We keep doing business, but we have done more business.

"At the beginning, the artists playing here felt terrible. They all came in shaking their heads, speechless. Don Byron, for instance, was very upset. I told him, 'Say what you want to. It's a free country.' So he said onstage during his set, 'If you are for that war, I don't know what you're doing here.' There were a few boos, but so what? Most people applauded."

James Browne, manager of Sweet Rhythm, concurred. "In the first days, there was apprehension. Everybody anticipated this invasion might trigger another terrorist event. There was a feeling of 'Oh my God, here we go,' and not knowing where it would lead. The city was on high alert and the weather was still bad, so people were reluctant to go out. But it quickly seemed that the war would be a walk-through, and the fear dissipated.

"Of course, the musicians were talking about it. We think about how 9-11 traumatized us, then see this incredible bombing on CNN, and know that's a reality for Iraqis. It's been disturbing, to say the least."

At Tonic, the Lower East Side club of the avant-garde, guitarists Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp and Alan Licht, trumpeter Dave Douglas, pianist Vijay Iyer, and singer Arto Lindsay participated in benefit concerts organized under the banner Jazz Against War, with proceeds going to the protest group Not In Our Name.

"At first, I think people were glued to their televisions, trying to keep up with what was happening, not going out to enjoy themselves," said Melissa Caruso Scott, Tonic's curator. "The few who did come out were not spending much on drinks. It was different than after 9-11, when everyone wanted to do something, and we raised a lot of money for victims and their families. With this war, people didn't feel like there was anything they could do. They would take Saturday off to go to a peace rally, and then spent the rest of the day at home."

Bassist William Parker played in a protest concert with Ribot and Douglas before the war began, and two later events with his Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and a music-dance piece featuring choreographer Patricia Nicholson and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. "People seemed enthusiastic to make a statement against the war by coming together to hear music," Parker said. "I didn't run into anyone who was for the war, not in my circle. All the musicians I ran into on the road, and also in europe, were definitely against it."

Parker and Nicholson, his wife, are gearing up for their eighth annual Vision Festival, this year titled Vision for Peace. "I suppose you could have a concert of music to shoot people by," said the bassist, "but most music, even low level pop songs, is intended to people feel good. Anything beautiful and strong that anyone makes is humanistic. To me, all art that is working is anti-war."

as commissioned by Swing Journal, Tokyo